


Baking Shenanigans

by roo2010



Series: When They Were Young [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF, hiddlesworth - Fandom
Genre: Baking, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 09:23:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7796287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roo2010/pseuds/roo2010
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when you let a five year old loose in the kitchen!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baking Shenanigans

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my five American 'sons' I hope you are having a lovely holiday. Steve and Paul huge Congratulations and I hope you will be very happy together. I wish you all health, happiness and long lives together. Lots of love from Roo x x x

One of the things Ethan liked to do best with his English 'Auntie' Lily was to bake. It got complicated sometimes and generally needed three separate screens but it was great fun. 'Auntie' Lily's job was to find the recipe to follow and read it out for Ethan to follow as best as he could and they could safely say that results had improved since the first attempt.  
Lily remembered that first attempt fondly, Ethan had no concept of weighing out ingredients or the fact that eggs needed to be out of their shells *before* they went in the mix but he'd had great fun doing something he'd never done before and had something to show at the end of it all, even if it wasn't edible! During all of this Tom and Chris were never far away one of them always in the same room but not interfering unless things got a bit out of hand or beyond Ethan's capabilities and of course to do anything to do with the oven. Of course sometimes things went wrong, generally when Ethan forgot to tell Lily what flavour cake he wanted and then complained that the cakes didn't taste or look right. Lily quickly learnt to ask the important questions first, before settling on a recipe and things went a lot better after that.  
As Ethan's skills improved they tried different things only moving on after an edible batch had been made. Chris and Tom were very impressed at the progress being made and always tried the results enthusiastically, even though sometimes they had to draw on acting skills they didn't know they possessed so as not to hurt Ethan's feelings. Decorating the cakes was a whole new ball game, Lily was quite an accomplished baker being self taught from the Internet and had a large array of nozzles, piping bags and food colours, with practice she could decorate cupcakes to nearly professional standard. Luckily for Chris and Tom they also had a supply of decorating equipment as Tom had tried his hand at cupcakes and so on not long after he'd moved in with Chris as a small way to say 'Thank You' for taking him in at such short notice. The baking had tailed off slightly but the lure of freshly baked goods was too much to resist and so Chris and Tom were content to let Ethan loose in the kitchen, though the mess he made had to be seen to be believed!   
Lily was really impressed at how quickly Ethan picked up the basics of decorating progressing rapidly from water icing to piping butter icing although 'sprinkle control' still left a lot to be desired!  
It was when Ethan decided to try it baking cookies the real problems started, he'd always been really bad at not eating the ingredients *before* they went into the mix but it's easier to resist when you're only using flour, eggs and sugar. The addition of chocolate chips, fudge chunks and other delicious small sweets was probably a temptation too far for the five year old. One of the reasons for the change of baked goods was the fact that Tom, Chris and Ethan were off on their first family holiday very soon. Tom's mum had bought them tickets and flights to Walt Disney World in Florida partly for Thanksgiving and partly as an apology for the emotional pain they'd put him through when he came out to them. The boys had decided to use the opportunity to visit their friends Steve and Paul, a couple who lived together in Orlando. This, of course, had made Ethan very excited and he'd decided that he needed to bake for them, after some consideration and a discussion with Lily it was thought that cookies would travel better and would be easier to pack than cupcakes. Of course Ethan decided that practice was required and so Lily was tasked with finding a suitable recipe. Lily found an easy looking recipe and messaged Tom and Chris with the ingredients so that they could make sure they had everything they needed.   
The next evening cookie baking began. Tom had weighed out all of the ingredients for this first attempt and everything was handily placed so that Ethan could do all the mixing. Lily came online and the fun started, all went well to start with until it got to the point where it was time to add the chocolate chips.  
" Right Ethan, add the chocolate chips to the bowl now" Lily instructed   
Ethan frowned as he looked around absentmindedly taking a small lump of dough out of the bowl and popping it in his mouth "I don't have any" he explained   
"Yes you do" said Lily "your dad got them ready for you, he told me."  
Understanding dawned "Oh those chocolates, they've gone!"   
"Where have they gone?" Lily enquired  
"I ated them" said Ethan proudly popping some more dough in his mouth and chewing happily.   
"You ate them? " Lily repeated shocked   
"Yep I ated them!" Was the reply.  
"But they were for the cookies Ethan, how can you make chocolate chip cookies without chocolate chips?"  
Ethan just shrugged, popping more dough into his mouth. Lizzie sighed, she'd learnt very early on that there was no point in her getting cross at Ethan, he was just too cute and she was too far away for it to be possible to stay cross with him. "Tell you what Ethan, why don't you go and find one of your daddies and see if they have any more chocolate chips?"  
"OK" Ethan mumbled through some more cookie dough and went to see who he could find. He came across Chris first and in the way that only five year olds have came straight to the point "Daddy, I need more chocolate chips please"   
Chris frowned slightly, he was sure that Tom had sorted out all the ingredients needed. "Didn't Papa weigh you out any? That's not like him"  
"He did Daddy" said Ethan earnestly. "Well where are they then?" Chris wanted to know. "I ated them Daddy, they were yummy!" Chris sighed "They were for the cookies buddy, not for your tummy just yet. Let me see if we have some more, though it may not be enough" he warned as he headed to the kitchen. Things like sweets, biscuits, chocolate and the like were put in the highest possible cupboard as Ethan had no problem climbing on a chair or stool in order to get what he wanted out of any lower cupboards no matter how many times he'd been told not to. "Here you go Ethan, this is all we have so don't eat any more before they go in the mix OK?" said Chris as he handed the packet over"  
"'K Daddy" was the short response as Ethan's attention returned to his baking, eating yet another piece of dough as he did so. Chris looked over at his tablet which was propped up so that Lily could keep an eye on progress and greeted the English girl who spent an awful lot of time online with them. "Hi Lily, how's it going?"  
"Good thanks Chris, Ethan seems to be getting the hang of cookies really quickly."   
"That's good, he's a bright kid. I'm so glad we could help him have a better life" Chris replied.  
"I'm glad you could too, and that you let me be a part of it, it really means a lot to me"   
"Aww Lily, you'll always be a part of this family, for as long as you want, I mean where would we be without your good advice, given so often I've lost count of the times you've helped us. You're very special to us, you know that."  
"Aww shucks Chris, now you've made me blush!" Lily said sheepishly, she didn't take praise well but understood the sentiment behind Chris' words. "Anyway" she said "I'd better turn my attention back to the baking, speak to you in a bit"  
"Sure thing" replied Chris and he went back to the job that had been interrupted.  
Ethan was bored waiting for the grown ups to stop talking so he'd added the chocolate chips to the rest of the mix in the bowl and carefully blended them in. When he looked up Lily and Daddy were still talking so he decided to see what the cookie dough tasted like now that it was finished. It was delicious, even better than it had been before.  
When Lily turned her attention back to the baking Ethan's mouth was empty so Lily didn't realise how much dough he'd already eaten, as she watched though another piece of mixture found its way into his mouth and he smiled happily at her "This tastes brilliant Auntie Lily!"   
"That's good Ethan but don't eat anymore or else there won't be enough to make cookies with" Lily replied.  
"OK" Ethan said even as his hand edged towards the mixing bowl again.   
"Ethan!" Lily warned as she saw what he was doing. "Yes Auntie Lily?" Was the response as yet another lump of dough headed towards his mouth. "Stop eating all the mixture please" Lily said, though she was already fairly sure her plea was falling on deaf ears. She was proven correct when yet another piece of mixture disappeared into Ethan's happy little mouth.   
In desperation Lily messaged Tom on his phone and asked him to step into the kitchen for a moment to give Ethan a hand with something he couldn't manage. Tom replied that of course he would and took the few steps to be with Ethan. As soon as he got there he saw the mixing bowl and dipped his hand in to snag a piece to taste "Ooh Lovely dough" he praised causing Lily to shout at him in exasperation "Tom you're meant to be stopping him doing that, not eating even more yourself!"  
Tom had the grace to look sheepish "Sorry Lily, it does taste really good though!"  
"Yes well, if you two keep going like that you won't get to find out what they taste like cooked!" Lily huffed "Now how much mixture is actually left?"  
"Not too much" Tom admitted and he angled the tablet so that she could see into the bowl. Lily was shocked by how little there was "There was meant to be enough for twelve cookies in that bowl, there's barely enough for three now! Right they need to go into the oven now before even more disappear!" Ethan and Tom quickly worked together to split the dough and roll it into slightly flattened balls to cook. Lily was right, of course and a grand total of two cookies were put in the oven. When they were cooked Tom removed them carefully and the smell of fresh baking soon drew Chris to the kitchen to see the results. He looked at the pair of baked goods sitting on the cooling rack perplexed "I thought we'd end up with more than that" he said eventually. Lily snorted at that "You would have if Tom and Ethan had more self control!"   
"Well never mind" said Chris "they smell brilliant and as soon as they're cooled I'm sure they'll taste brilliant too, especially with a glass of milk "  
He was right, they were delicious and the batch that were made,along with some brownies, didn't last 24 hours once Tom, Chris, Ethan, Steve and Paul were all together in Florida.


End file.
